Thread package



' Aug. 6, 1940. R RSH 2,210,839

THREAD PACKAGE Filed Nov. 9, 1938 INVENTOR ATToRNEY. z

Patented Aug. 6, 1940 UNlTED STATES PATENT OFFICE to Saco-Lowell poration of Maine Shops, Boston, Mass, a cor- Application November 9, 1938, Serial No. 239,654

3 Claims.

This invention relates to thread or yarn packages and more especially to those used in the textile industry. For convenience thread and yarn will hereinafter be included in the term y In preparing yarn for many of the uses made of it, as for example in weaving, knitting and braiding, and also in connection with some of the processes in the manufacture of the yarn itself, as for example cabling, it is necessary, or

at least advantageous, to wind the yarn into.

packages suitable for use in such processes. One type of yarn package much used in these arts comprises a yarn body wound on a core or other support and having a tapered end to facilitate the withdrawal of the yarn over the end and thus to avoid the necessity for revolving the entire yarn package. Theyare very satisfactory with yarn made of some fibers and up to certain limits in size, but they do give trouble with the more slippery kinds of yarn, such as those made of rayon, and this is also true both with rayon yarn and with fine yarns made of some of the more common fibers when the packages are large. Because of the tendency in recent years to increase the size of yarn packages for production reasons and to reduce the number of knots, the use of these prior forms of packages has become considerably less satisfactory than was formerly the case. In addition, the greatly increased use of rayon, combined with its very slippery nature, has served to develop defects in or limitations of these prior art packages which formerly were not nearly so troublesome.

The tapered top type of package is valuable because of facilitating withdrawal of the yarn therefrom over the end and of reducing or, in some cases, avoiding altogether, interference with the delivery of the yarn by a spool head. However, the production of these tapered end packages in such a manner as to prevent the layers or coils from sloughing off has been attended with other difficulties which have increased with the increase in package size. For example, the manufacture of the more common of these packages has involved an acceleration of the traversing speed as the winding point approaches the top of the package with a corresponding deceleration upon. a reversal of the traverse, and these changes in speed introduce errors in the desired building of the, package caused by the momentum-pf the parts and the presence of lost motion in the mechanism.- Also, the rapid change in thernovement of the ring rail in the vicinity of the'nose of the bobbin tends to upset the delicate equilibrium in which the traveler has established itself to accommodate its previous operating conditions. Sometimes the same result is produced during the drawing of the yarn from a package of this type when the yarn suddenly is whipped from a large to a small diameter, and vice versa, due to the change in pitch at the nose of the bobbin, so that there is a tendency for the balloon to take a freak form, such as a figure eight or a double balloon, at least momentarily, with aresultant increase in the strain on the yarn which, when fine yarn is being operated upon, may be suflicient to break it.

The present invention is primarily concerned with this problem. It aims to devise a yarn package adapted for use in large sizes which will be stable, will hold a maximum amount of yarn for a given height and diameter of core or spool, in which'the coils or wraps will not slough off, and which will unwind freely, smoothly and evenly in an end-off run. The invention also involves a novel method of producing yarn packages.

Thenature of the invention will be readily understood from the following description when read in connection with the accompanying drawing, and the novel features will be particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

The single figure of the drawing is a sectional elevation, somewhat diagrammatic in character, glowing a yarn package embodying this inven- In the drawing a yarn body 2 is shown wound on a core or supporting body, in this instance consisting of a spool having two heads 3 and 4 connected by a tube or barrel 5. The lower head 3 is considerably larger in diameter than the other and is designed to serve as a base. The upper or nose head 4 is made substantially as large as is considered practical to support as much of the yarn body as possible while still affording a free run-off of the yarn when drawn from the upper end of the package.

This thread body may be regarded as divided into two sections, namely, an inner cylindrical section indicated in general at 6 and an outer section I forming a continuation of, and encircling, the inner section. In these sections the yarn layers are represented merely by lines and the number of layers in each section obviously will be much greater than as shown. The section 6 is built up in an ordinary spool wind consisting of closely wound layers, wound one upon the other in superposed relationship, and each extending the entire height of the yarn body.

This section is made of a diameter substantially as large as the diameter of the yarn supporting area of the head 4.

When the package has been built up to this diameter, the traversing movement of the winding point is so changed that thereafter it takes place in a series of cycles, each a duplicate of the other. Considering, for example, the first layer a in the section 1, it will be observed that it runs for the entire height of the package but that the succeeding layers b, c and d difier in length by a certain definite decrement. In other words, these layers terminate at levels varying progressively in height. By repeating these cycles the thread body is built up to the desired diameter and to the tapered form necessary to facilitate a free over-end run-off. The entire change in length of the layers or wraps of yarn takes place above the mid-height of the package so that throughout the great part of the entire length of the thread body its full diameter is utilized. In other words, the entire portion of this thread body below its mid-height, and in some cases for a greater height, is a solidly wound cylinder in which, of course, all of the layers are parallel to the core. Preferably, also, the same winding speed is maintained throughout the production of the package so that all the layers have the same pitch.

It will readily be seen that by this method a package is produced having the desired tapered top while still maintaining a constant speed throughout the entire building operation so that the traveler is not subjected to those influences above described which tend to upset its equilibrium and to interfere with its smooth travel around the ring as it lays on the yarn. This same factor also naturally precludes the quick whipping of the yarn as it is drawn from the package and which has heretofore been produced by the presence of a sudden and large shift in diameter of the point on the thread body from which the yarn is drawn. On the contrary, the transition from one layer to another occurs at such a relatively slow rate on the package provided by this invention that there is no tendency to upset the balloon or to impose a sudden strain on the yarn due to' the factors above described. The package is stable even in those sizes now regarded as large, it has a high yarn capacity for a given height and diameter of spool, and gives practically no trouble due to any tendency of the coils or wraps to slump or slough off, even with slippery yarn.

It should be understood that the invention is not at all limited to the proportions shown nor to the number or measurements of the steps by which successive layers of yarn in the outer section 1 differ from each other in height. It is de-., sirable, however, that these steps be of substantial dimensions and that each cycle should include a layer extending the entire height of the yarn body to cover those layers under it. In this connection it should be pointed out that each line in the drawing representing a layer of yarn really represents a, pair of layers, wound one upon the other, by a complete reciprocation of the ring rail, one layer being laid on during the upward stroke and the other during the ensuing downward stroke of the rail. Consequently, each of the winding cycles which make up the section 1 consists of a series of groups of layers, successive pairs of layers in each group differing in height by predetermined distances. From the standpoint of utilizing the space in the package as economically as possible, it is desirable to make the cylindrical section 6 large in proportion to the encircling section I, but these proportions necessarily will vary with the requirements of individual situations. It will rarely be the case, however, that the cylindrical section 6 will not be at least one-third of the entire yarn body. In a typical package each of the sections 6 and 1 holds approximately 50% of the entire volume of yarn in the package.

While I have herein shown and described a typical embodiment of my invention, it will be understood that theinvention may be embodied in other forms without departing from the spirit or scope thereof.

Having thus described my invention, what I desire to claim as new is:

1. A yarn package comprising a body of yarn wound on a core and including an inner section composed of superposed closely wound layers extending the entire height of said yarn body, the diameter of the body of yarn at the top being substantially that of the inner section, said yarn body also including an outer portion encircling said section and composed essentially of closely wound layers arranged in adjoining groups and so stepped in height in each group as to form a yarn body tapered from a relatively large midheight diameter to a much smaller top, the lower portions of all of said layers being parallel to said core.

2. A yarn package comprising a body of yarn wound on a spool and comprising an inner substantially cylindrical section, the diameter of the body of yarn at the top being substantially that of the inner section and an outer section encircling said cylindrical section and composed essentially of layers wound one on another with the upper ends of the layers terminating at levels varying progressively in height and interspersed at regular intervals with layers extending the full height of the yarn body so that the diameter of the entire body is gradually reduced from about its mid-height to its top, the layers of less than the full height of the body predominating in number in said entire outer section over those extending the full height of the body, all of said layers being spool wound.

3. A yarn package comprising a spool provided with a base and a head and a barrel connecting them, the head being substantially smaller in diameter than the base, and a yarn body wound on said spool and comprising an inner cylindrical section confined by said base and head and composed of substantially solid layers wound one on another, the diameter of the body of yarn at the top being substantially that of the inner section, said body also including another section encircling said cylindrical section and composed chiefly of groups of layers, successive pairs of layers in each group differing in height by predetermined amounts, and all of the layers substantially throughout said body being of the same pitch.

HENRY ROBERT MARSH. 

